List of 29 books that Tony Hseih asked EVERYONE in Zappos to read

[nradam123]

Allright guys, I have been reading a lot of books lately and I found this absolute gold.

A list of 29 books that Tony Hseih, who was a billionaire (recently went just below a billion) and cofounder of Zappos asked all his staff to read, even the minimum wage ones. He bought these books in trucks and handed them over to his staff.

Check it out -



Go read them

Source - http://bit.ly/2bNzMzG

 

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[GuestUser450]

What a weird list. A few good ones, but a lot of junk too.

From an owner's perspective: don't do this to your employees. Why would you recommend 30 books instead of extracting the best idea from each one to implement into your training? It's just lazy.

I think this is why zappos is a mismanaged mess. On paper it looks like a bunch of mini ceos, but in practice it's a coop of headless chickens. When you apply self-management with no hierarchy, fuzzy compensation, no clear incentives, etc., you're asking for an hr nightmare.

 

[nradam123]

What a weird list. A few good ones, but a lot of junk too.

From an owner's perspective: don't do this to your employees. Why would you recommend 30 books instead of extracting the best idea from each one to implement into your training? It's just lazy.

I think this is why zappos is a mismanaged mess. On paper it looks like a bunch of mini ceos, but in practice it's a coop of headless chickens. When you apply self-management with no hierarchy, fuzzy compensation, no clear incentives, etc., you're asking for an hr nightmare.

Hey, whats going on brother?

I think Zappos is a great example of execution, building a shoe company from zero to billion in a window of 8 years is not an easy task. Especially Zappos customer service is known to be one of the best in the world.

But I dunno, I did not check what you said about Zappos having fuzzy compensation, unclear incentives and hr nightmare. Can you link me to it so that I can check?

Adam

 

[GuestUser450]

Hey, whats going on brother?

Yeah, in hindsight, not cool of me to hijack a well-meaning thread. I hope more contribute to it.

zero to billion in a window of 8 years is not an easy task.

No doubt. Incredible growth, even more impressive in spite of its structure. Although not exactly zero; they took 60+ million in vc too.

Can you link me to it so that I can check?

Zappos’ Weird Management Style Is Costing It More Employees

 

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[GMSI7D]

Brian Tracy 's goals is my favourite one. This author began with zero skills and eventually achieved international fame.

i love his books : 100 % content, zero useless blabla. this is my learning style.

by the way, go here to have a free taste of his teaching :

http://www.briantracy.com/about/free_resources.aspx

 

[Niptuck MD]

What a weird list. A few good ones, but a lot of junk too.

From an owner's perspective: don't do this to your employees. Why would you recommend 30 books instead of extracting the best idea from each one to implement into your training? It's just lazy.

I think this is why zappos is a mismanaged mess. On paper it looks like a bunch of mini ceos, but in practice it's a coop of headless chickens. When you apply self-management with no hierarchy, fuzzy compensation, no clear incentives, etc., you're asking for an hr nightmare.

correctly stated;

jeffrey gitomers books are really top notch however

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Yeah, in hindsight, not cool of me to hijack a well-meaning thread. I hope more contribute to it.


No doubt. Incredible growth, even more impressive in spite of its structure. Although not exactly zero; they took 60+ million in vc too.


Zappos’ Weird Management Style Is Costing It More Employees

I just read the article you linked. Why is that bad?

18% of employees didn't buy into the new culture, so they left. Now Zappos is left primarily with the employees that want to be there. That's a great thing for the future of a company.

 

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[GuestUser450]

I just read the article you linked. Why is that bad?

I don't want to distract any more from OP's intent, so briefly: turnover rate by itself is not bad but a symptom of larger issues that inevitably trickle down to the consumer.
Zappos' median pay is appx 50K, so while it's not like the folks leaving are tech talent accepting better offers they're also probably not underpaid minions.

Now Zappos is left primarily with the employees that want to be there.

Assuming the bleeding stops here is a big leap, especially when turnover grew from 14% to almost 20% in a year. Looks like they're 1500ish people, so that could be a couple of salaried people per week. That's a scary trend that looks less like "cleaning house" and more like a broken system.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

I don't want to distract any more from OP's intent, so briefly: turnover rate by itself is not bad but a symptom of larger issues that inevitably trickle down to the consumer.
Zappos' median pay is appx 50K, so while it's not like the folks leaving are tech talent accepting better offers they're also probably not underpaid minions.


Assuming the bleeding stops here is a big leap, especially when turnover grew from 14% to almost 20% in a year. Looks like they're 1500ish people, so that could be a couple of salaried people per week. That's a scary trend that looks less like "cleaning house" and more like a broken system.

I disagree completely.

Turnover is part of Zappos' strategy and culture. They pay employees to leave if they don't like it there.

That creates losses in terms of hiring costs, but is made up for in higher productivity (on average from the remaining employees).